Ugandan Joins Commission to Protect Human Subjects Used for Studies

President Obama has tapped Julius Ecuru, a Ugandan environmental scientist, for an international research panel studying the use of human subjects in scientific studies.

The commission will address such controversial studies as one in Guatemala where mental patients, soldiers and prisoners were injected and otherwise contaminated with syphilis by American public health doctors to study the course of the disease. No effort was made to cure all the infected patients.

Many other studies took place between 1845 and 1990 including the well-known testing of 400 African-American sharecroppers in 1932.

However, the 37-year old Ugandan may draw fire over his work in bio-technology and genetically modified (GM) organisms. Schools throughout the U.K., the U.S. and parts of Europe have banned GM foods as unsafe and not fully tested. Other countries which have banned GM crops include Zambia, Venezuela, Hungary, and India for some crops.

The international panel will deliver its recommendations and findings to President Obama before October this year.

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